Pompeius rested his right wing on the Enipeus; Caesar opposite
to him rested his left on the broken ground stretching in front
of the Enipeus; the two other wings were stationed out in the plain,
covered in each case by the cavalry and the light troops.
The intention of Pompeius was to keep his infantry on the defensive,
but with his cavalry to scatter the weak band of horsemen which,
mixed after the German fashion with light infantry, confronted him,
and then to take Caesar's right wing in rear. His infantry
courageously sustained the first charge of that of the enemy,
and the engagement there came to a stand.

Labienus likewise dispersed
the enemy's cavalry after a brave but short resistance,
and deployed his force to the left with the view of turning
the infantry. But Caesar, foreseeing the defeat of his cavalry,
had stationed behind it on the threatened flank of his right wing
some 2000 of his best legionaries. As the enemy's horsemen,
driving those of Caesar before them, galloped along and around the line,
they suddenly came upon this select corps advancing intrepidly
against them and, rapidly thrown into confusion by the unexpected
and unusual infantry attack,(32) they galloped at full speed
from the field of battle.

32. With this is connected the well-known direction of Caesar to
his soldiers to strike at the faces of the enemy's horsemen.
the infantry--which here in an altogether irregular way acted on
the offensive against cavalry, who were not to be reached with
the sabres--were not to throw their -pila-, but to use them as hand-
spears against the cavalry and, in order to defend themselves
better against these, to thrust at their faces (Plutarch, Pomp. 69,
71; Caes. 45; Appian, ii. 76, 78; Flor. ii. 12; Oros. vi. 15;
erroneously Frontinus, iv. 7, 32). The anecdotical turn given to
this instruction, that the Pompeian horsemen were to be brought to
run away by the fear of receiving scars in their faces, and that
they actually galloped off "holding their hands before their eyes"
(Plutarch), collapses of itself; for it has point only on
the supposition that the Pompeian cavalry had consisted principally of
the young nobility of Rome, the "graceful dancers"; and this was
not the case (p. 224). At the most it may be, that the wit of
the camp gave to that simple and judicious military order this very
irrational but certainly comic turn.

The victorious legionaries cut to pieces
the enemy's archers now unprotected, then rushed at the left wing
of the enemy, and began now on their part to turn it. At the same time
Caesar's third division hitherto reserved advanced along
the whole line to the attack. The unexpected defeat of the best arm
of the Pompeian army, as it raised the courage of their opponents,
broke that of the army and above all that of the general. When Pompeius,
who from the outset did not trust his infantry, saw the horsemen
gallop off, he rode back at once from the field of battle to the camp,
without even awaiting the issue of the general attack ordered by Caesar.
His legions began to waver and soon to retire over the brook
into the camp, which was not accomplished without severe loss.